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RIAA Must Divulge Expenses-Per-Download
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Court has ordered UMG Recordings, Warner Bros. Records, Interscope Records, Motown, and SONY BMG to disclose their expenses-per-download to the defendant's lawyers, in UMG v. Lindor, a case pending in Brooklyn. The Court held that the expense figures are relevant to the issue of whether the RIAA's attempt to recover damages of $750 or more per 99-cent song file, is an unconstitutional violation of due process."
IANAL, but I think the problem is that they would have to show that they were doing that before this request to itemize the costs was made. Otherwise they could make up anything they wanted.
"Yes your honor, we encode the bits into a 1 oz. gold coins and mail them to our other office where they are melted down and made into a plaque for this specific case"
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
According to the copyright office, damages go from 750$ to 30,000$. Unknown infringement is no less than 200$. Known, willful infringement is no greater than 150,000$. These all are statutory damages.
I guess the next question is to actually ask if these statutory damages are constitutional or not, which is being asked now. Really, what else is there?
Have you ever paid attention to all of those 10,000 page "free trade" treaties we keep signing? Almost every treaty has a provision regarding copyright. Generally each treaty requires stronger and stronger copyright provisions. If congress actually did come to their senses and balance copyright law, we would be in violation of tons of treaties and subject to massive economic sanctions.
Balanced copyrights will require a worldwide effort and support from the heads of state of dozens of countries...just to get started.
2. It took us 6 months to get the revenue information. Now it's been 4 1/2 months so far to try and get the expense information.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
For some good reading on the constitutionality issue, I recommend Cam Barker's article in Texas Law Review, "Grossly Excessive Penalties in the Battle Against Illegal File-Sharing: The Troubling Effects of Aggregating Minimum Statutory Damages for Copyright Infringement"
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
So if you find that iRATE doesn't work well for you today, give it a week or two and it should work much better.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
The Supreme Court held in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co v. Campbell et al. 538 U.S. 408 (2003) that a punitive damage award that is more than 10 times higher than the actual damages is presumably a violation of due process. Thus, it logically follows that statutory damages ($750) that are more than 1,100 times higher than actual damages are an even greater violation of due process for two reasons: First, the ratio is significantly higher, and second, the goal of statutory damages is compensatory rather than punative, so there is less of a reason to make the damages a high number; it should bear a relation to the actual damages. The sole purpose of statutory damages in copyright law is due to the fact that actual damages are often hard if not impossible to prove. But if actual harm can be quantified in any reasonable manner, then a statutory damage award must still bear a reasonable ratio to that amount or else it would violate due process. More than 10 to 1 is improper for punative damages, I'd say more than 2-3 to 1 is improper for statutory damages (since the purpose is not to punish, but merely to compensate the copyright holder). The copyright holder can seek punative damages at trial and if they can prove their case and entitlement thereto, they can get punative damages up to 10 times higher than actual damages. But for congress to mandate a statutory damage amount over 1,100 times higher than the actual harm/loss (per infringement!) simply must be an unconstitutional violation of due process to be consistent with existing Supreme Court precedent. This is particularly true if one argues that a portion of statutory damages include punative damages.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
Not to be a grammar nazi, but you need to watch your antecedents. I actually understood that the kids were selling the file, not the telecom, until long after I finished reading your comment. Just to make it clear: The telecom was trying to charge the kids $80K for a file the telecomwas itself selling for $30. Is that right?
Put identity in the browser.